Sighting might be one of two hawks (Benjamin Burtt column - May 10, 2009)

Robert Sykes photoTHIS photograph of a hawk was taken by Robert Sykes from his kitchen in Elbridge. It appears to be either a sharp-shinned hawk or a Cooper's hawk.

By Benjamin P. Burtt
Contributing writer

Dear Ben: We have a feeder about 5 feet outside our kitchen window and on March 23 we noticed a small hawk perched on a post about 10 feet beyond the feeder.
At first, the hawk was facing away from the window and the feeder and it remained there for at least 10 minutes. While it was there I grabbed my camera, but I could only see the back of the bird and the back of its head.
To encourage the bird to turn around, I made some noise by tapping several times on the window. With its back still turned towards me, it turned its head in my direction. That is the picture shown here. We are not sure what kind of hawk this was because our bird books don't show rear views of birds. Could you please identify the bird for us? -- Bob and Marge Sykes, Elbridge

Dear Bob and Marge: The color of its back and its general shape identifies it as either a sharp-shinned hawk or a Cooper's hawk. That the end of the tail is straight across tells me that it is a sharp-shinned hawk. If the tip had been rounded, it would have been a Cooper's hawk.
Your photograph also illustrates that a hawk can turn its head far enough to look at something directly behind it. I can say this because your camera was aimed directly at the bird's back and yet we can see both of its eyes. Experiments have shown that hawks can rotate their head almost 180 degrees.
An owl can do even better than a hawk. In fact, it can rotate its head more than 180 degrees.
By the way, the two hawks I have mentioned here live in wooded areas and feed almost exclusively on other birds.

Benjamin P. Burtt writes about birds every other week for Stars. Write to him in care of Stars Magazine, P.O. Box 4915, Syracuse, NY 13221; or features@syracuse.com (put "birds" in the subject field).